When we came first California, we experienced different things than previous times like we couldn’t find any house and our Turkish family friends from Concord hosted us for a few days. The table you see above was one of the dinners our friends prepared for us. Menu; chicken thigh in oven bag, bulgur pilaf, spicy potato wedges, green salad, homemade bread and fruit…

I’ve got a bread machine as gift and I am trying various kind of bread recipes nowadays. the photos above were white bread and French Baguettes which look like Italian bread 🙂 when I really liked what I did, I will share the recipe with you…

Blueberry muffin is one of the classic American recipes. They are best when they are served warm. An important tip about the recipe is that you don’t be tempted to beat muffin mixture. İt should be fairly wet and needs to be quite lumpy. Overmixing will create tough muffins. Alton Brown who is one of the famous cooks and TV hosts of Food Network suggests stirring mixture a count of ten. Besides, He uses 1 and ½ cups of blueberries and divides them. 1 cup of blueberries go in to the mixture and 1/2 cup to the top of muffins (by pressing them down slightly).

In this recipe, the amount of sugar might seem little. You may want to increase the amount. But most people I asked like the taste better in this way.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Stand 12 paper liners in a muffin pan, or simply grease the pan well. Sift the flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar. Mix the milk, eggs , melted butter and vanilla in a bowl and whisk lightly. Add to the flour mixture and fold together lightly.

Fold in the blueberries, then divide the mixture among the muffin liners. Scatter a few nuts and a little damerara sugar over the top of each. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the muffins are well risen and golden.

That breakfast was the last table I set for now. I prepared it for our friends and I tried two new recipes , first one is triangle pastries with leek and chicken filling and the other one is spinach quiche…I liked triangle pastry better I guess I need to keep trying for quiche till I get a successful result. Maybe I’m being unfair to myself but indeed it was good yet not great.

heat the olive oil on medium high heat and saute chopped onion, add leek, carrots and chicken in turn. add salt and pepper and cook until vegetables are soft and chicken is completely white. sit for while to cool down.

place 4 sheet of Pastries on each other on a flat surface like counter top. Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry sheets lengthwise into 5 cm strips. Place tablespoonful of the filling 1 inch from the bottom end of each strip.

Take the bottom right corner of the strip between your thumb and finger and fold over the filling to the left to make a triangle. Gently pull up the bottom left corner and fold up to make a second triangle. Continue folding until you reach the top. Brush with water to stick. Fry them until golden brown. Place them on a platter layered with paper towel. Serve warm.

You can reach other fillings for this pastry here or if you want to try it with phyllo dough…Bon Apetit!

the breakfast I prepared above was for a vegetarian guest of ours. He is almost one of the members of our family so it was a kind of humble breakfast. We had mushroom saute, Turkish pastry with spinach, baked spicy potato slices and of course other Turkish kind of foods for breakfast. I’m planning to invite a crowded group for breakfast soon again, hopefully then it ll be colorful table. I hope I ‘II share it immediately. stay tuned….

if it is asked about the best place for eating fish dinner, the most of the people who live in Turkey or stayed in İstanbul for a while, native or foreign, definitely reply the question as Bosphorus, İstanbul. We had this one of a kind chance and billions thanks to Allah!

those two pictures above were taken in the other sister- in-law of mine(spouse sister) in istanbul. in the former picture she prepared the table for breakfast quickly and in the latter she made a delicious BBQ for us in Şile.

dolmabahçe sarayı

……………………

Dolmabahçe Palace

Fatih’de bir restoran

…………

a restaurant in Fatih, İST

Emirgan Mado’da boğaza nazır kahvaltı

………….

We had a wonderful breakfast at Emirgan Mado/ İstanbul, watching splendid scene of Bosphorus.

It is good to use soft Turkish style black olives for this recipe, if you have on hand. If you don’t, you could go with black olive paste or feta cheese. I used both black olive slices for some and traditional feta cheese & parsley filling for the rest.

You are flexible to use poppy seeds, nigella seeds or sesame on top.

Ingredients

125 g soft butter

1/2 cup yogurt

1/4 cup oil

1 egg, yolk and white separated

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

all-purpose flour (approx 3-3.5 cups)

for filling

1 cup sliced black olive

for top

1 egg yolk

sesame seed

nigella seed

Directions

To make dough shell, in a large mixing bowl, combine soft butter, egg white, salt, yogurt, and oil. In another medium bowl, sift flour and baking powder together. Gradually Add flour mixture to the butter mixture until you’ll have a nice and soft dough. Let the dough sit for about 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into 2 equal balls. Roll each half into a circle 1/5 -inch thick. Cut with a sharp knife into 8 pieces like pizza slices. Take one slice and put 1 tsp filling on the wide side and roll till the pointy end. Brush top with egg yolk and sprinkle some sesame seeds. Place butterhorn roll on a parchment paper placed (or on a lightly greased) cookie sheet. After finished all pieces, pop it in 350 F preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or so.